The correct way to garner my attention is not with stupid publicity stunts, over-the-top PR, nor draping your game in scantily clad models. It’s to call it something really, really odd, like Frost Wars: The Rise Of Fatty Sparkles. This is a Unity-based turn-based strategy from first time developers, Lantern, and has been created using crowd-sourced ideas. And features a murderous polar bear.

Lantern’s stated philosophy is that games are better developed if you include players in the production from the start. The team, boasting former employees of Sony, TreyArch, Dreamworks, Disney, and Henson, has set out to make a cross-platform PVP strategy, apparently already including hundreds of player suggestions as it’s gone along.

“As Lantern cherishes the idea of community-designed gaming free from censorship or corporate influence, the players serve as the game’s designers and constructors, sharing ideas and voting on what to add next. The best ideas go into the game to be play-tested and refined by everyone within the game’s community.”

Frost Wars takes place in the Arctic, after a drilling company (Toxi Co.) unleashes a buried goo that mutates the local fauna. This, naturally, leads to a war between the local Eskimos (sic) and Toxi employees, all masterminded by… an arms-dealing polar bear called Fatty Sparkles. It’s turn-based, with synchronous and non-synchronous play, and you can see the teaser here:

There’s no planned release date yet, but it’ll be playable if you’re heading to PAX. (Also, this post has the cleverest pun title anyone has ever written.)

If someone would be so kind as to explain the pun in the title, i must admit that one went so completely over my head as to comprise its own interstellar orbit as opposed to gravitational arc (purposeful use of long words to conceal one’s own ineptitude at deciphering (there i go again) hidden meaning)?